Wishing For a Highlander (37 page)

She urged her mount down a steep incline and the clumsy nag stumbled. Loose rocks clattered under hoof as the horse struggled to remain upright.

She clung to the saddle, but couldn’t hold on as the nag went down. Braced for the bite of the hard terrain, she put out her hands to protect her face. She hit with a mighty force and rolled downhill, arms around her head.

Then the ground went out from beneath her.

Time stood still as she threw out her arms to catch herself, but there was no stopping her sudden descent. Rocks like knives sliced her skin as she slid down, down, and down some more into a cleft of unforgiving limestone. Her fingers raked at the walls, nails tearing. When she hit the bottom, the crack of shattering bone filled her world with horror.

Pain scraped through her entire body. She screamed. And screamed. And screamed. She didn’t give up her screaming even when her throat felt like fire. Panic was a noose around her neck, tightening by the hour, suffocating her.

Night fell. Her screams had become coarse whispers.

Ten lifetimes as Glen’s wife would have been better than this agony. She’d been a fool to spurn his offer.

“I’m so sorry,” she found herself muttering like a prayer. “I’ve done wrong, I’ve done wrong. Help me. I’ll do anything.”

Deity must have taken pity on her, because a familiar voice cut through her pain.

“Will you really, Anya? Will ye do anything?”

“Aodhan! Help me!” His deep voice far above her soothed the worst of her fear. He’d cared for her once. He would help her.

“Anything?”

“Aye! Aye, anything. I’ll become your servant! I’ll face Steafan! Anything!” She contorted as much as her twisted body would allow, trying to glimpse his face, but she saw nothing but darkness.

“Here’s what I want,” he said calmly, as though he were placing an order with the butcher. “I want ye to confess to all ye’ve done.”

“Aodhan, I’m dying! I’ve broken my legs. Please! Get me up and I’ll confess to anything.”

“Now, Anya. I want to hear you confess. Then I shall decide whether or not ye are deserving of help.”

A sob ripped from her chest. She could barely think for the pain that had become her world. “I did it,” she uttered through clenched teeth. “I put the viper in the sack. I wanted to make that woman pay for ruining me.”

“What else do ye have to say?”

“Are ye a bloody vicar?” Rage mixed with agony to make her vision wash crimson. “Shall I confess all my sins? Get me up, you self-righteous fool!”

“Do ye even care what happened with the viper?” His voice went cold as ice.

That stopped her anger. “Of course,” she said after a pause. “What happened?”

“Darcy will live. But it was a near thing. And ’tis too soon to tell if he may keep his leg.”

Faint emotion pricked her heart. Mayhap ’twas relief, but it paled in comparison to her will to survive. Aodhan clearly expected her to be sorry. If that was what he wanted, that was what she’d give him. “I am glad he lives,” she said. “I regret what I’ve done. Please, help me. I’m begging you.”

He ignored her plea. “Did ye ken there was a bairn in that cart? Darcy’s a da, now.”

She scoffed. Aye, she’d kent he’d married a disgraced woman who’d let herself get with child out of wedlock. But even she had to admit, the child was the fairest bastard she’d ever glimpsed. Almost angelic enough with that crown of shining hair to have made her regret her plot. Almost.

“Why do ye tell me such things? Can ye no’ tell the state I’m in? Please! I’ll do anything ye ask. Anything!”

“Ah, but ye canna do what I lust so desperately for ye to do.” His voice dipped with sadness. “I wished only for ye to care for another above yourself. But ye truly are wicked.” He was quiet for so long, she thought he’d gone away.

“Aodhan! Dinna leave me! Please!”

“I’m here, lass. I’m here.” Though she couldn’t see him, she had the distinct impression he was shaking his head in disappointment.

“I do care! I didna wish harm to the child. I prayed the child would be spared,” she lied.

“Too late, my dear. Too late. I have seen to the depths of your selfish heart.” He sighed heavily, the sound slicing through the crevasse like a barren wind. When he spoke again, his voice was firm with decision. “I’ll be leaving ye, now. You’ll die a slow, painful death, but ’twill be better than if I bring ye back to Steafan. Consider it a mercy.” The last word rung with dreadful finality.

“No! No, ye canna leave me! Aodhan!” Rocks shifting under his shoes spoke more baldly than any words. He was leaving.

She screamed and cried and begged, praying he’d only gone off for a time to frighten her. When dawn came, and Aodhan never reappeared, she lost hope. She slumped against the wall of the crevasse, stared up at the sliver of mocking blue sky, and wished for death.

But it wasn’t death that came for her.

“Good morning,
ma cherie
. It seems you are in need of rescuing.”

She squinted at a dark figure haloed by sunlight.

“Bastien Gravois at your service.”

Chapter 25

“Put that down, you ornery old fool.” Melanie swatted at Darcy with a dishtowel, uncaring that her southern roots were showing.

“Och, I’m neither auld nor foolish, and I dinna ken what ornery means,” he answered with a grin as he danced away with the pie that had been cooling on the windowsill. Curse the man’s long reach!

“That’s a lie. If I’ve told you what ornery means once, I’ve told you a dozen times. The fact that you claim not to remember just proves how apt a description it is.” She reclaimed the pie, made with the cherries from Fraineach’s orchard, and ordered her husband back to bed.

Two months had passed since they’d returned to Ackergill after their two-week stay in Brora. Darcy was still recuperating from the snakebite. He’d been in a coma for five days–the worst five days of her life–and had awoken ill and with no appetite. In the weeks that followed, he’d lost about 30 pounds by her estimate–two stone by his–which he was just now starting to put back on. He’d also lost all the toenails on his right foot, which had turned more shades of purple than she had known existed, but had never darkened to the black that meant tissue death. He’d gotten his energy back just a few days ago, along with his appetite–for food and other things that she couldn’t afford to think about unless she wanted to be blushing when her guests arrived–and it had been impossible to get him to rest ever since.

“I’ve been in bed for weeks,” he argued. “Much as I love to do as ye ask where our bed is concerned, I willna go back to it while the sun is up unless ye come with me.” He waggled his brows.

She harrumphed Scottish-style, a habit she’d picked up from Darcy. “Well then, make yourself useful and go check on Janine.”

Babysitting duty would be easier on his mending body than working on the broken sail at the mill with Edmund, where she had no doubt he would go if she didn’t keep him distracted. She could have wrung her brother-in-law’s neck when he marched in first thing this morning and suggested Darcy help him with it. She’d only managed to keep her husband from the manual labor by improvising a strip-tease that led to another sort of strenuous activity, but at least one that didn’t have him dangling fifty feet off the ground while he was weak as a kitten…well, judging by his performance this morning he was much more like a tiger than a kitten. And now she was blushing despite her best efforts.

Just in time for the knock at the front door.

“That’ll be Fran, aye?” Darcy asked as he finger-walked Janine into the kitchen.

She turned to hide her blush, but not before catching his longing look at the freshly sliced pie on the butcher’s block. Honestly, he was more work at the moment than her almost-one-year old.

“Aye,” she said, “or Ginnie. Though it’s early yet.” It was her turn to host the Sunday afternoon tea the three of them had begun as soon as she’d arrived home. Ginneleah had hosted the first up at the keep, where Steafan had made an appearance and come as close to apologizing as he’d likely ever come. “Welcome home, lass,” he’d said. “’Tis fair sweet to have ye back.” He’d kissed her cheek and then left the ladies to their tea.

She ran a loving hand over Janine’s soft hair, kissed Darcy on the check, and went to answer the door, calling sweetly over her shoulder, “If I come back and find one piece of that pie missing, there’ll be hell to pay, mister.”

Behind her, she heard him conspiring with their daughter. “One piece, your mama says. Then two must be okay.”

She grinned at his modern slang and the high-pitched giggle that meant he and Janine were availing themselves of her morning’s labor.

She opened the door not to an early Fran or Ginneleah, but to a broad-shouldered man with a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his face. When he looked up, she smiled with surprise. Blue-tinted glasses hid the true color of eyes she knew must be pink based on the egg-shell white skin stretched across the fresh cheeks and chiseled jaw of a young man around eighteen.

“Good afternoon. I am Timothy MacLeod, come from Inverness to call on Darcy Keith.”

* * * *

Darcy strode to the parlor, his spirits high despite the pain in his right foot. The muscles around the site of the snakebite still cramped with every step, but he never complained, so glad was he to still have a foot to pain him.

“Ye look like death warmed over,” the lad, or rather the young man, said. Timothy had added half a hand to his height and lost the roundness of youth from his face. “Is that blood, man?” He motioned toward his own mouth while gaping at Darcy.

“Cherry pie.” He tongued the tart filling from the corner of his mouth. “I’d offer ye a slice, but I’m worrit about the penance I’ll have to pay as it is.” He clasped Timothy’s forearm. “Good to see you. What brings ye to Ackergill?”

“Monsieur Gravois was worrit about ye,” Timothy said. “Somat about a fortune Madame Hilda read. By the looks of ye, I’d say he was right to fash. What happened?”

“Bit by a fair poisonous snake,” he said by way of justifying his pallor and thin frame, both of which would soon change now that he had the strength to return to work at his mill–though he didn’t relish telling his wife of his plans for the morrow. “What of you? I thought ye didna approve of the Rom, and now here ye are running errands for him.” He didn’t bother hiding his pleasure at the fact. He liked Gravois even more since Malina had told him of the man’s gift. There was no doubt in his mind that if he had never visited the gypsy camp, he would have died on the road near Brora. He also suspected Gravois could help Timothy and had hoped the lad might give the man the chance.

“We made our peace,” Timothy said with a grimace. “Had to. There was another, uh, incident at the shop, and if Monsieur Gravois hadna been keeping an eye on me, I might have been found out.”

“Another incident? That sounds like a story, and I’d like to escape the house before my wife’s guests arrive and try to dote on me. I’ve got whisky up at the mill. Come. I’ll pour while ye talk.”

* * * *

Over a dinner of mutton, boiled radishes, and buttery rolls, all of which Fran had taught her to make, Melanie hooted with unladylike laughter while Darcy recounted Timothy’s tale of cutting himself on a bill of sale and making a fire hydrant appear on the toe of a customer at MacLeod’s shop.

“Oh, my,” she sighed. “What did you do?”

Timothy had initially appeared uncomfortable with talk of magic at the dinner table, but he had eventually relaxed and even laughed along, though his manner remained reserved. “Well, to be honest, I was too stunned at my own stupidity to do aught–I kent better than to take off my gloves, but the paper was sticking, you see.” As he spoke, he displayed his hands, covered with sturdy leather gloves that he hadn’t even removed for dinner. “But Monsieur Gravois was there lickety-split, as if he forekent somat was about to happen. A nose for magic that tinker’s got.” He tapped his nose for emphasis. “He played it off as a jest and took a bow. Then he swept out of the shop with the–what did ye call it? A hydrant?–on a wee wagon and his screeching monkey on his shoulder. Those in the shop didna ken whether to applaud or run him out of town, so they just went back to their business as if nothing had happened.”

They all laughed some more, and she got a sense of the young man’s earnest nature. It wasn’t hard to see why Darcy had taken to him so readily.

“So that’s when you reacquainted yourself with Gravois?” she asked.

“Aye. ’Twas last winter. He’s taught me a great deal since, even though we only meet when his troupe travels near Inverness. In fact…” He cleared his throat, and his eyes darted from her to Darcy. “I brought your wife somat Gravois thought she would like. ’Tis a piece we worked on together.”

She exchanged a look with her husband. Judging by his furrowed brow, he didn’t know what Timothy was talking about.

“Another gift from Gravois?” he asked, his tone darkly serious. “Does this mean one of us is in danger?”

Timothy shook his head. “No, no. Nothing like that, least not that I’m aware. It’s just, well, Monsieur Gravois supposed my bloodmagic was like a child with no discipline, and he thought giving it some direction would help it to no’ be so wild. He was right.” Timothy’s smile transformed his face. He’d smiled shyly before, but this smile was a soul-brightening one. He seemed lighter, as if a weight had lifted from his shoulders. “I dinna ken for sure if it will work as we planned, but I think it will. We did several tests first, you see.” He looked back and forth between them expectantly, but she had no idea what he was talking about.